


Stumble and Fall

by Fey_Nikola



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Apple Shenanigans, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fey_Nikola/pseuds/Fey_Nikola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At seventeen Ezio watched his family hanged, falsely accused because of a conspiracy he knew nothing about. He had to steal their corpses away in the night from under the noses of the city guard because he was considered an outlaw. He asked the woman he loved to leave the city with him, but she refused.</p><p>At twenty-five, Malik watched his younger brother die at the hands of their enemies. He left his brother's body behind in order to carry out their mission. He lost his arm and was given only a small post in Jerusalem, where once he'd been a strong and respected Master Assassin.</p><p>Grief, guilt, fear, hate.<br/>Apples are curious things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumble and Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Assassin's Creed kink meme fill. Forever unfinished.

\-----

He could still feel the weight of their bodies in his arms. Petruccio, so small and limp, his round little face so still, his dead eyes glazed over, looking to the sky. The burning smell of hair and cloth and skin stinging his nostrils. Christina, unable to choose him over her family.

He understood.

He understood everything and wished to God that he didn’t.

He was returning to _La Rosa Colta_ , passing through the crowd quickly. Loose wallet strings here, a turned-away head there, and he ducked into a small alley as some guards turned the corner ahead. A woman called out that her money was gone and the guards made their way over. He faded deeper into the alley.

A wave of nausea swept over him, but he merely wiped his dry lips and kept moving. His eyes burned and his vision was spotty. A man shouted in the distance behind him that his purse had been cut. Ahead, he could hear the murmur of the crowd, the shopkeepers hawking their wares and the soft rumbling of an endless parade of feet on flagstones.

He stumbled, on what he didn’t see. His hand reached for the wall to catch him, but he misjudged and fell to one knee. Somehow, the fall seemed to last longer than that.

Head swimming, Ezio swallowed hard against the sudden dry feeling in his throat. He walked a few more paces; heading toward the subdued sounds of the crowds ahead. His feet scuffed against the dusty stones, raising small puffs of dry dust.

Ezio stopped. Something was very wrong here.

The moon was in a different part of the sky.

His shadow was almost directly below him. It was midnight now. But a moment ago, it had been just past nightfall. He leaned against the nearer wall, breathing hard, trying to think of how he could’ve lost track of so much time.

The plaster of the far wall was a different shade of white than he was used to. His eyes lifted to the windows up above. He’d never seen their like before. An older style, perhaps. There were small piles of sand tucked into the corner between wall and ground. His throat felt parched from the dry air. The windows provided excellent hand and footholds.

Something was very, _very_ wrong.

The roofs were flat. The chimneys were blunt. There were no roof tiles _anywhere_.

He had no idea where he was.

His hands trembled, and he rubbed them together. His vision was blurring again and his teeth were chattering loudly. In the quiet up above the crowds, it seemed to echo back to him from the alien landscape. Two roofs away he thought he saw something familiar; a rooftop garden.

Two jumps and five steps, then he was swinging himself under the linen curtains. It was nearly impossible to see inside. Ezio adjusted the curtains slightly. Pitch black.

He stayed there until morning.

\-----

It was warm before the sun was even in the sky, and Ezio was moving while it was still cool enough to exert himself on the rooftops. He had no food, no water, and no idea if the coin he’d stolen was even any good here. All Ezio had was his father’s Assassin costume and hidden blade, and his money purse. He had no way to tell where he was, and the strange lilting language the locals spoke was incomprehensible.

He kept running. At least the guards on the roofs were still as touchy as he was used to. He didn’t need to speak the language to know when they were angry with him.

The hidden blade slid cleanly in and out. He stepped back out of the way and let the dark-skinned man fall. A quick search of his body revealed very little; a small water skin, which he immediately transferred to his own person, and a small cake of something hard and tasteless. He considered the weapons, but he had never before used a bow and the sword was of poor quality and balance.

He left the weapons there and stood to leave. The man’s body had fallen awkwardly. Ezio felt there was something he should do or say. Nothing came to him. He murmured a small prayer and left it lying there.

His mental map of the city was slowly becoming clearer; he was obviously in the upper class part currently, heading north toward a tall tower. He hoped to climb it and get a clearer lay of the land.

The tower offered no trouble, and he was able to get around to the other side before any of the guards patrolled past. From the vantage point at the top, he was able to get a clear view of the city’s walls, and a dimmer view of the surrounding landscape.

Ezio remained crouched on the perch for some time, looking for some landmark that could indicate to him where he was. There were other towers in the distance, some churches and domed buildings that looked important, but nothing that he knew. Nothing familiar.

He didn’t think to check for a landing surface until after he jumped. A true Leap of Faith.

The cushioning and poking of the straw was a familiar relief. No one was looking, and there were no guards in the immediate vicinity. Ezio bounded out of his cover and seamlessly joined the crowd, picking the hay from his clothes as he travelled.

Though he could not understand them and their clothes were strange and drab, the movements of the crowd and the omnipresent drone of people interacting was something of a comfort. He weaved his way through the people, travelling north as though it was for a purpose.

The snarl of a guard and the corresponding cry of an old man turned Ezio’s head. Several of the cloth-armoured guards were harassing a citizen, calling out accusations as they surrounded him. Ezio’s conscience plucked at him, and he moved out of the flow of the crowd to better see.

The old man more a tatty brown robe that had been repaired so much it was more thread and dull patches than the original cloth. The guards, by contrast, were well equipped with fine weapons and unstained uniforms. Their boots were polished, and even their padded helmets looked new. The old man flinched and stumbled away awkwardly as one of the guards made as if to kick him, and Ezio guessed that the man suffered from stiffness in his joints.

The man pleaded. The guards scoffed. Ezio watched uncertainly.

Finally, tiring of the old man’s pitiful pleas, the leader grabbed him by his arm and shook him fiercely. Ezio unthinkingly stepped forward.

One of the three regular guards saw the approach and yelled at him to leave. Ezio considered it for a moment, but the other guards grew suspicious and drew their blades against him. Apparently Ezio would make a better example than an old man.

Hitting the catch to release his hidden blade, Ezio turned away the sword aiming to take his head. The mad swing left the guard completely open, and Ezio took the chance and sliced open the unfortunate man’s throat. The remaining three guards moved to circle him, and he backed away in a defensive crouch to the far side of the street.

The squad’s leader yelled something at his men and waved his free arm wildly. In that moment of distraction, Ezio bolted forward two steps and slashed at his stomach. The leader used his impressive scimitar to deflect most of the force, but Ezio grinned while he danced back at the sizeable gash he left in the leader’s side.

The guard to his left tried to take advantage of Ezio’s retreat to stab him in the back, but Ezio ducked under the sword and used his hidden blade to further deflect the strike. Back to the wall once more, Ezio watched the guard on his right, knowing that he would be the next to try his luck.

With an ululating cry, the guard attacked almost on cue; giving a mighty downwards swing intended to cleave through Ezio’s defense and his skull in one fell blow. However, thinking quickly, Ezio moved toward his attacker and stabbed upward from his stomach, embedding the tip of his hidden blade in the guard’s heart.

Stumbling, Ezio turned the body on the spot, avoiding the leader’s sneak-attack by letting the dying guard take the blow. It took him a few attempts to withdraw his hidden blade from the body, and the remaining guards moved to take advantage.

Tumbling sideways over the corpse now lying in the street, Ezio took his defensive pose again as he tried to take control of the situation. The leader was looking pale and judging from the steadily growing bloodstain would soon be out of the fight one way or another. The remaining regular guard was looking nervous, and his eyes were nervously flickering over to his deceased squad-mates.

With a sudden jump, Ezio leapt onto the chest of the regular guard and sank his blade into his throat. The grating crack as they hit the ground and the sudden limpness of the body told him he’d broken his neck, and Ezio was back on his feet in time to deflect another desperate swing of the leader’s scimitar.

Chest heaving and throat burning, Ezio held to his defensive stance, waiting for the leader to make a mistake as he caught his breath. The bloodied man was holding his wound closed at this point, though it did him little good. His legs shook, and his sword arm wavered but did not drop. Ezio admired the man’s discipline.

“You fought well, and I am grateful to have met such a skilled opponent. I hope that I can give you an honorable death.” Ezio moved forward, batting aside the weak attempt at a counter and drove his hidden blade up into the leader’s brain from under his chin. He gave a small spasm, and Ezio lowered the body to the ground before removing his hidden blade.

“ _Requiescat in pace_.” Ezio intoned sincerely, then took some water to sooth his parched, aching throat.

The battle had, without his noticing, worked its way back around to where the old man remained watching; the only pedestrian left on the impromptu battleground. When the old man shuffled over and began to profusely thank him, Ezio tried to wave the elder off with a muttered: “It was nothing.”

“ _Italiano_?” The old man asked.

Ezio’s nodded, and it took him a moment to find his voice to answer. “ _Si. Siete_?”

He could feel his hopes being dashed as the man shook his head sadly. The old man continued to speak in his own language, but Ezio felt too disheartened to take it in. A kindly hand on his shoulder snapped him to attention once again, and the old man exaggeratedly beckoned for Ezio to follow him.

Hesitating, Ezio looked about him at the carnage he’d caused. Blood was sprayed liberally on the bodies and puddles spread in the dust, brownish and potent. Flies already buzzed about, gathering in small clouds. The people who had wisely fled could still be heard screaming in the distance.

He snatched up the fine scimitar, wiped it off on the least-bloodied guard’s armour, and sheathed it at his side where once his father’s sword had rested. Then he turned away and hurried after the retreating figure of the old man he’d saved.

Eventually, after a few turns, they rejoined a crowd oblivious to what he’d done. His clothes, though white, were well oiled and gave no hint to his recent work. The old man would turn his head at times to speak with him, and though they could not understand each other Ezio answered back anyway; carrying on a pointless imagined conversation about the weather, his neighbors and his grandchildren.

They had been heading straight south, so the old man’s sudden left turn up a small set of stairs was concerning. It would be excellent for an ambush. When he did not follow, the man turned laboriously and beckoned to Ezio, his face earnest and without guile. Still, Ezio hesitated. Guards on patrol heading toward him decided it.

The old man theatrically fussed with something in his robes until the guards had passed by. He gestured, and Ezio leaned out and made sure the guards were out of sight. At his nod, the old man pointed upward to the balcony just over their heads, then to the domed roof rising from the buildings across the street they’d just been walking down. Ezio made a motion as if to scale the wall, and the man nodded enthusiastically.

Having conveyed his message, the old man clasped one of Ezio’s hands between his weathered palms and muttered a benediction of some sort. Ezio nodded his thanks and looked up to the roof where he wondered how many guards there would be to meet him. When he looked back down, the old man was already shuffling out of the far end of the alleyway, in the next moment became nothing but another slip of drab colour in a thin crowd of them.

Ezio looked up at the balcony, considering. He wanted to trust the old man. He seemed kind and genuinely grateful.

So had the Gonfaloniere.

He turned abruptly and headed further south. He brushed past four men in white robes and took the first right turn he came across. Passing under a large archway, he spotted what looked to be a public fountain between two large hanging rugs. Ezio refilled his pilfered water skin gratefully, took several deep drafts, and refilled it again.

Scanning the rooftops, he took his time replacing his water skin. A ladder leaned against the far building. Tugging the skin to make sure it was in place, he sauntered over to the ladder and scaled it in a few bounds. There, he could see the dome the old man had pointed to and no guards but the scattered few in the streets.

He scurried across the top of the large archway and only then noticed the guard on a nearby roof. Ezio hurriedly ducked behind a small nearby building. There was just the one guard, and a quick look around told him that he was the only one around.

There had been no trap, and he whispered an apology to the old man. Peeking his head out, he saw that the guard had shown no signs of sighting him and had passed behind a similar construction himself. Leaning back so his back was once more against cover, Ezio caught his breath as he considered his next move.

A flash of white stone against the dull tan blur to his right caught his eye. He glanced, then looked again. There was a symbol there, built into the brickwork so faintly that he wouldn’t have noticed it if the sun hadn’t hit it just so. He traced his father’s belt, the caliper-like triangle nearly identical to the symbol etched in the stone. Beyond it lay a sturdy wooden lattice, above it and to the side was the dome the old man had indicated. The guard was out of sight and another quick glance told Ezio he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

He approached the opening slowly, wary and ready to bolt at the slightest hint of danger. Uncertain, Ezio looked back, but the guard was completely out of sight, and there was no sound of any soldiers waiting below. He leaned out and looked down into a small indoor garden.

There were cushions and rugs on the floor with small gardens of green plants against the walls. In one corner a tree grew up to the lattice and directly below him he heard the quiet splash of a fountain. There were even some birds pecking away at seed.

Ezio looked the small garden room over one last time, then examined the wall below him to find handholds. He swung himself over the edge and lowered himself until he hung above the spout of the fountain. He let go and fell to the grating with only a small click of metal shifting under his feet. His hidden blade shot out as he turned around, more for the comfort of having his weapon ready than any real expectation of a fight.

He stepped down from the fountain and winced as the birds took wing in a noisy flurry of feathers. Any element of surprise he might’ve had was now gone. The noise of something scratching seeped out into the garden as Ezio stood, tense and expectant, but nothing more happened.

A few steps put him at an angle to peer through the only doorway and into the dim room beyond. There was a man behind a counter, writing intently - the source of the scratching. Ezio took one more cautious step forward, then froze as the man looked up at him.

At first the man watched him with disinterest, but then the strangeness of his clothes seemed to register and he looked Ezio over carefully from head to foot. Ezio forced himself to breathe calmly through his nose. Once the man had inspected his clothing, his focus returned to Ezio’s face. The man dropped his quill as first confusion, then anger, then a terrifying black hate filled his expression. Ezio retracted his blade and bolted for the fountain.

The man cried out, and though Ezio was already head and shoulders above the edge of the roof and a second from escape, something stopped him. The sun burned furiously against his bare knuckles. A drop of sweat ran its way down his chest. He looked back.

The man stood in the doorway, near hand resting against the doorframe. He was breathing hard too, and suddenly Ezio didn’t feel so foolish for his own racing heartbeat. They stood there, frozen for an age or for only a moment. Ezio swallowed hard. The man sighed and gestured toward the open sky ahead of him. Ezio could not understand his words of course, but he recognized sarcasm and irritation and perhaps a hint of an apology hidden under everything else.

But still, the way the man had looked at him…

Ezio turned to look out at the rooftops again, nearly blinded by the high sun reflecting off of the white stone. The clouds blew swiftly across the pale blue sky, and as he watched a shadow passed over and was gone again in a second. The symbol he’d followed down into the garden looked like an arrow, pointing the way back inside.

Ezio licked his lips. He thought of his father.

It was only as he was climbing back down that he realized that the man could’ve hit him with a throwing knife while his back was turned. As he turned and stepped off the fountain, he wondered if that was a point in the man’s favor or not.

The man had stepped properly into the indoor garden now, and from four paces away examined him closely. Ezio returned the favor, recognizing the crooked state of a nose that had been broken several times, the feet positioned under his shoulders for balance and stability in a fight, the hard look of one fighter assessing another.

It wasn’t until he tried to speak to him again that Ezio realized that the man’s left sleeve actually had its cuff sewn up to the shoulder, the blue-black coat hiding the lost arm until he shifted. Ezio did his best not to wince and let his eyes glide smoothly away from the empty sleeve as though he had seen nothing. The man’s dark angry eyes told him he hadn’t been nearly subtle enough.

“I’m sorry; I did not mean to stare.” Ezio hoped that something of his meaning could get across in his tone, knowing that there was no chance the man would understand the words themselves.

The man was expressive when he chose to be. Surprise, suspicion, and then a warning; _Do not pity me_. Ezio nodded gravely. The look of hate was fresh and potent in his memory; he had no desire to rile the man a second time. The man’s lip curled, then he snorted and muttered something unfriendly to himself. Ezio eased back to lean against the fountain, turning slightly away and letting his left hand rest against the stone lip.

The man spoke to him again questioningly, then again, but the cadence and the tone was changed. A third time he spoke with a different sort of accent, and Ezio eyes widened as he realized that the man was trying different languages. Ezio wet his lips, then tried the one of the only languages he remembered from the slew his mother and tutor had tried to teach him when he’d been younger.

“ _Parlez-vous Francais_?”

“ _Oui_.”

His knees buckled and it was only his grip on the fountain that kept him from collapse. Tears sprang to his eyes and he rubbed them away briskly. He’d never thought that the long afternoons spent minding Petruccio, Claudia and the Bellecriox sisters could have helped him years later.

“ _J-je m’appelle_ Ezio Auditore. _Comment_ …” He thought hard, trying desperately to remember what the sisters had patiently made him repeat over and over until he’d memorized it. “ _Comment vous_ …”

“ _Je m’appelle_ Malik Al-Sayf.”

Ezio had to take a deep breath and cough a few times before he could continue. “ _Grazie a Dio. C'est un plaisir de faire votre connaissance_.” And he meant it with everything he had in him.

\-----

The boy - and he didn’t look much like a boy in build, but really with such naivety how could Malik have ever thought otherwise - sat at his _shatranj_ board toying with some of the pieces. He hadn’t heard word of a foreign assassin being sent to Jerusalem, but he had not been _rafiq_ long; it was possible that no one had thought to tell him, though the idea of being overlooked so chafed his pride. Still, the boy was young and untried, what reasoning had led him to be sent so far from where he came from?

He traced the lines of charcoal slowly with the very tip of his quill, leaving the faintest outlines of streets and buildings traced onto the paper. He replaced the quill in his inkwell, then withdrew the original map from under the copy and set it aside. Taking quill in hand again, Malik thickened the lines, careful of the pressure required to have the ink bleed through but not smudge or blot.

The boy - Ezio, and wasn’t _that_ a foreign name - claimed that he did not know where he was, nor how he had come to be in the city. When shown a vague map of the world, he seemed relieved to be able to point roughly to where he came from. Malik had shown him where he was now, and told him how many days journey he was from his home, and watched the boy’s heart break.

“ _Dio mio, non ore, mesi_! Claudia… _madre_ …” The boy had quietly gone to the far side of the room as Malik had bid him without complaint, had been sitting in silence contemplating the pieces of his _shatranj_ set ever since.

A few last touches to even out a church’s lines and he reached a good stopping point at last. His fraying quill set aside to be cleaned and re-sharpened, he stoppered his inkwell firmly. He gave a large relaxing sigh, and unthinkingly reached to crack his knuckles and massage his weary hand. The chafing movement of his sleeve against the remnant of his arm reminded him, and he looked quickly to Ezio. The boy was playing a game against himself, safely distracted.

Malik surreptitiously rubbed the outside of his fist against his thigh. It did little to ease the aching in his joints, but it was all he had. He watched the boy moving the pieces, sitting on the dark side yet moving for both with a speed that suggested this is a game he has played before. Curious, Malik lifted the counter door and moved closer.

Ezio didn’t make motion indicating he’d noticed Malik’s approach, though suddenly he began to reset the board. On a whim - not at all because it’s a distraction - Malik sat on the opposite side of the board; the light side, the side he prefers to play.

Ezio began the game again, slower this time; almost as if he was showing Malik how it had played out. By the third move Malik is intrigued; he’s never seen rules played that allow the _al-Fil_ to be moved so many spaces before. As the game progressed it sped up, but Malik had always been a quick study, and had no trouble following. Ezio moved into the endgame, and Malik was confused and a little surprised when he realized that Ezio had chosen to sit on the losing side of the board.

Malik looked at the boy again, studied his face hard. With such a stoic expression, it would be easy to substitute _that man_ into Ezio’s place. When he’d first seen him standing in the garden, he’d been sure it was _him_ , fancy new clothes and all. But then he’d seen the uncertain way he’d stood, the hesitation in his eyes, and then the boy had bolted and Malik had known; _Altair wouldn’t run_.

If he weren’t looking so carefully at the boy, Malik probably wouldn’t have seen the tears building until they were rolling silently down his cheeks. Maybe not even then, because the boy certainly didn’t seem to notice them. One last move and Ezio paused, fingers hovering over the board. Malik looked over the pieces to see what moves could be left to be made, but by Ezio’s rules the game seemed to be over.

“ _Tu perdes_.”He said quietly, and Ezio’s hand twitched violently and knocked over his _shah_.

“ _Oui. J’ai perdu_.” Ezio agreed in a calm, even voice. And then the dam broke.

With dry, rough, heaving sobs the boy hid his face in his right hand, left arm wrapped around his chest like he was trying to find something to hang on to. Misery was in his every rasping breath, pain and loss writ into his bowed shoulders.

Malik reset the board and waited.

“ _J-jeu final_ ,” The boy managed to choke out an explanation. “ _Avec m-mon frère_ …”

And then suddenly - overwhelmingly - Malik wanted to throw the boy out of his bureau, slam the lattice gate shut so he could never enter again and smash this stupid _shatranj_ set into dust.

“ _J’ai p-perdu. Je ne l-les ai p-pas sauvés_.” The boy whispers, trying to hide how his voice shudders and breaks.

Malik wishes he could hate this boy, if only so that he could pass off some little part of his hate for himself. He could picture it in his mind; Ezio, young and untested, standing beside his brother against faceless enemies. They fight valiantly, and Ezio’s brother sacrifices himself nobly to save the boy.

He needed to know. “ _Votre frère, ètait lui plus jeune_?” And when Ezio shook his head - when the boy told him that _his_ older brother managed to save _him_ \- Malik hated himself a little more.


End file.
